Penny For Your Thoughts, Hermione?
by Hannah Longbottom
Summary: Hermione is all on her own...errr, well not exactly...she has an injured and uncontious Harry...and her own thoughts to keep her company...


_Hello, my faithful Harry Potter fans! Here's another oneshot! The next time I write will be a story! I promise!_

_Hope you all enjoy this!  
Love,  
HL.  
xxx_

* * *

Hermione Apparated into the midst of Kielder Forest, a forest that she'd gone on a school trip for a picnic about nine years ago, clutching a thrashing, cold Harry in one arm and his broken wand in the other. Feeling incredibly guilty, she lay him down on the ground, after using the Hot-Air Charm to melt the snow that had arrived thick and fast, and got out the small beaded bag from her deep pocket. Her hair was now turning back to brown and bushy instead of the mousy and sleek hair of the Muggle she had impersonated. Harry had transformed completely. Hermione suspected it was probably the power of the snake's bite that had transformed him. She got out her own wand, opened the bag and pointed her own wand at it.

"_Accio tent!_" she said, as the tent zoomed out of the bag and into her hand, along with it's familiar smell of cats. She laid the bag down beside Harry, who was now moaning and rolling around uncomfortably. She moved it a little further out of harm's way, and pointed her wand at the tent.

"_Erecto!_"

In one fluid motion, the tent constructed itself perfectly, yet again. She looked down at Harry's forearm, where the snake had violently gouged puncture marks in his arm, which moments before had been oozing dark red blood, and now, as well as that, it was turning a nasty green colour. Hermione sighed and Summoned some cotton wool. She had found it in Ginny's bathroom and just packed it, although she didn't know why at the time.

**_Well, thank goodness I did_**, she thought. She tore out a little piece of cotton wool, and pointed her wand at it from a distance.

"_Aguamenti!_" she said, as the cotton wool got sprinkled with water. She dabbed it on Harry's arm gently and got it cleaned up a bit. Then, she Summoned the Essence of Dittany and tore off another piece of cotton wool. She put a little on the cotton wool and wiped it on Harry's arm. When she was finished, it started healing a little there and then. With that, she put the dittany and the rest of the cotton wool back in the bag.

Hermione sighed again and picked up the beaded bag, the pieces of Harry's wand and looped her forearms through Harry's arms. She opened the tent and dragged him into the bedroom. She stopped by the bunk, and knowing very well that she couldn't lift him, she dropped the bag and wands and decided to try anyway.

She slipped one arm around the back of his neck and the other at the back of his knees and lifted him with all her strength. She managed to lift him a few inches off the ground, but she wasn't anywhere near strong enough to lift him up onto the bunk. She put him down again and grabbed her wand. Just as she was about to come up with a solution, she noticed that Harry was sweating through his robes. She caught a hold of him, which wasn't easy as he was thrashing around so violently, took off the thick coat and the two jumpers he was wearing, so he was just left with a thin navy T-shirt and jeans.

Then, she noticed that there was something beating slightly through his T-shirt, and it couldn't be his heart bcauuse it was glowing a slight red colour. She lifted his T-shirt up a little, and realized it was the Horcrux, sitting right on the place was Harry's heart was, miles beneath the surface of the twitching locket. It seemed angry. She tried to take it off, but she suddenly drew her hand away, shocked. It was a lot hotter than she had expected. She determinedly put her hands back on the Horcrux, and tried to prise it off. But it wouldn't move. It refused to budge from where it was sitting. After a few minutes of tugging to no avail, Hermione pointed her wand at the Horcrux cautiously.

"_Diffindo!_"

With a sound like a violent ripping, the Horcrux reluctantly came away, and Hermione quickly took it. She put it in the bag, and then looked at Harry's chest in horror. There was a scarlet oval over his heart, where the Horcrux had burnt him. She winced as she looked at it and then at the now healing puncture marks on his forearm.

Remembering that she couldn't lift Harry onto the bunk, she used the Hover Charm on him and within minutes, he was lying in the bunk, twitching slightly and moaning a little. Hermione realized that even inside the tent, it was still a little bit chilly. So she pointed her wand at the fireplace between the two bunk beds.

"_Incendio!_"

Instantly, a jet of flames burst out of the tip of her wand, shot straight into the fireplace and started licking and spitting obediently. Feeling satisfied, Hermione checked that Harry was at least facing the walls and took off her own robes and put on a thick jumper instead. Still feeling a little cold, she put on another one and searched for a book in the beaded bag.

"No," Harry moaned. "No. Please don't!"

The sound unsettled Hermione slightly, but she kept burrowing for a book indignantly. She found one to her liking and walked over to the fire. It had been ages before she had got some leisure with a good book, and even though this probably wasn't the time, she wanted to do anything that would make her forget.

"No," Harry begged again. "Please..Please don't! Please don't kill them, _please!_"

Hermione moaned alongside him, sympathetically. He was probably dreaming about his parents. Then suddenly, Harry started weeping.

"Please, _please_, I'll do anything! Just _please _don't kill them! Please!"

Hermione felt an emotional pang in his stomach, and she nearly started crying. Quickly, she sought out a cushion. When she found it, she saw Harry's wand out of the corner of her eye, split nearly in half, hanging on by one single strand of fragile phoenix feather. She took it and brought it over with her book to the fireplace. As she sat down, she studied the wand, trying not to listen to Harry's cries of "No! No!". She felt so terrible. She wondered what would happen to Harry now. How was he supposed to continue without his wand? It would never be the same again now. It would be like Ron's wand when it broke in their second year. _Ron..._

As she thought of him, a tear really did roll down her cheek, and Harry's continued moans did not help. Hermione began to sob along with Harry, as she thought of when Ron had left them. He had been frustrated for days beforehand, of course. She remembered all the things he said to her before he left, about how frustrated he was getting and how slowly it was going. More tears came as Hermione thought of everything he'd said to her, just the day before his abrupt departure:

**_FLASHBACK_**

"Hermione," Ron whispered, as he jumped down off his bunk and walked over to Hermione, who was sitting by the fireplace, reading _Tales of Beedle the Bard_.

"What?" Hermione said, only looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm not putting that Horcrux on. I just had my turn."

"It's not about that!" Ron hissed irritably, kneeling down opposite Hermione and looking around before he spoke. "Hermione, aren't you getting tired of this?"

"Tired of what?" she asked, still not taking her eyes off the book.

"Tired of running around for weeks, surviving on practically no food, and as if that weren't bad enough, we haven't even found anything yet!"

Hermione finally looked up at him. "We've found one Horcrux, Ron."

"And how close are we to destroying it?" he asked. "Look Hermione, I know you're about as fed up as I am."

"Ron," Hermione sighed, closing the book. "Obviously, it's not the most comfortable living situation. But what did you expect? Did you think we'd have done it all in a week?"

"No. But I did think that Harry at least had a straightforward plan. I thought he'd have had more to go on, rather than just wandering around hoping something will fall out of the sky."

"Ron, he's trying. What more can he do?"

"Come on, Hermione! You have to admit, it's not what you expected it to be."

"OK," Hermione said, sighing again. "I admit, I am a bit disappointed. I suppose I did think he had a proper plan."

"See? Hermione think about what we're doing. It's dangerous enough, but we don't even have a proper plan! You-Know-Who or his Death Eaters, assuming that we don't die of starvation first."

"Ron, don't be so pessimistic! Vol-"

"_Stop saying the name!_"

"Fine! _You-Know-Who _doesn't even know where we are! As long as we don't make any stupid mistakes, we'll be fine!"

"Well, I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"Ron, don't! We agreed that we'd-"

She stopped dead as Harry walked into the tent. He seemed to notice that Ron and Hermione stopped talking as soon as he walked into the room. He looked at them strangely, took the Snitch from his bunk bed and went outside again.

"Ron," Hermione went on. "He's not stupid. He knows we've been talking about him."

"Well, he can't exactly expect us to be happy-go-lucky every single day. Hermione, why don't we just go?"

"What?"

"We can go back to The Burrow."

"And just leave Harry here alone?"

"If he wants to be a hero and go and look for dark wizards, let him! I on the other hand want to keep my life, thank you very much!"

"Ron! I can't believe you're even saying this!"

"Hermione, come on. You can't possibly say that you're not thinking the same thing in your head!"

"Ron, we agreed we'd stay with Harry and help."

"Right. So you choose to stay with him then."

"No, Ron! You _know _that's not what I meant!"

"Whatever, Hermione. I'll just go by myself. I wouldn't want to break up the happy couple."

"Ron!" Hermione sighed exasperatingly, as she watched hims storm out of the tent in anger.

* * *

Hermione's flashback was interrupted by an especially load moan from Harry, who was now thrashing and jerking on his bed more than ever.

"No," he was moaning. "No.."

Hermione sighed, wiped the tears from her eyes and decided that she'd better wake Harry up from whatever horrors he was seeing.


End file.
